Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads
Danny Says
So what if this book just came out, and I tend to always read books that are sent to me from publishers for free? While Joel Best can often bore with statistics (he wrote the wonderful Damned Lies and Statistics), his point of this book is intriguing: Americans often fall for scams. He is not talking about the guys that buy Ab Rollers sold on late night infomercials (which I own, pitifully). Best is talking about how smart people in business, medicine and education cling to the next 7-step approach or easy-to-use carb diet. Education, in my opinion, suffers from this disease more than any other profession, as the pendulum has swung most recently to drilling letter sounds and endlessly assessing students as a part of the government’s No Child Left Untested program. If nothing else, this book will get you thinking. I’ve attached an anecdote from my own teaching experiences on this month’s blog (click here).